Beethoven had settled permanently in Vienna in the autumn of 1792 and
the body of his work originated, of course, in the Austrian capital. We
cannot, however, dismiss the compositions preceding the First Symphony
as wholly negligible. The creations of this period are to a large extent
relatively small in scale. There is a quantity of piano music largely in
the form of variations, a number of songs and several arias, odds and
ends of chamber music, dances, marches, and such. Some of the variations
for piano and strings are based on melodies of Handel, Mozart, and a
number of lesser lights. During his Bonn days Beethoven had composed a
score for a “knightly ballet” (_Ritterballet_), performed by members of
the Bonn aristocracy and ascribed at first to Count Waldstein. It was
Beethoven’s first ballet score and preceded by some years his far more
pretentious _Creatures of Prometheus_, written in Vienna to a scenario
by the noted dancer, Salvatore Vigano.
The vocal compositions of this early period are not, perhaps, of
conspicuous quality. Beethoven’s best-known song and, indeed, his most
famous (though not the best) is the setting of Matthisson’s
_Adelaide_—more a _cantate_ than what we have come to classify as a
genuine _Lied_. Considerably later he was to write the cycle _An die
ferne Geliebte_, which together with some of his settings of Goethe
poems and the stark but majestic _Die Ehre Gottes aus der Natur_, may
pass as Beethoven’s most memorable achievements in the province of the
solo song. To his Bonn days, however, belongs a genuine cantata, the one
composed in 1790 on the death of the Emperor Joseph II. This work
survives chiefly because one of its finest pages was later utilized in
the last scene of _Fidelio_, into which it fits admirably.
Three years before the First Symphony Beethoven began the first
orchestral score he decided to publish. This was the B-flat Piano
Concerto, which though we know it as No. 2, opus 19, actually preceded
the one in C major, opus 15. It was performed for the first time by the
composer March 29, 1795, on the occasion of his first appearance “as
virtuoso and composer” before the Viennese public. It had been announced
that he would play “an entirely new concerto” on this occasion of the
first two annual concerts given for the benefit of the widows of the
Tonkünstler Society. Thayer, following the lead of Nottebohm, felt
certain that this “new” concerto was the one in B flat. Beethoven was
tardy in completing it, and we are told that two days before the concert
the Rondo was not yet on paper. In spite of illness he wrote it out at
the eleventh hour, while four copyists sat in the next room and were
handed the piece, sheet by sheet, as soon as the music was set down.
We know as good as nothing of the public reaction to the work. We do
know, however, that the composer was far from satisfied with it and
revised the score before playing it in Prague in 1798. At that, he
confided to the publisher, Franz Hoffmeister, that he “did not consider
it one of his best.” The first movement has a vigorous and arresting
first theme, followed by a tranquil, songful one. Some of the cantabile
phrases that follow have a rather Mozartean character. The Adagio begins
with a devout, rather hymnlike melody, on which the piano subsequently
embroiders. The Finale, a rondo with a playful recurrent theme
suggestive of Haydn, contains a second lilting melody and another,
partly syncopated, which, though in minor, does not lessen at all the
high spirits of the movement.
Just as the composer considered the B-flat Concerto “not one of his best
works,” so he also questioned the value of the subsequent C major
Concerto, written in 1797 and not published (like the First Symphony)
until 1801. Yet this concerto is a great advance over its predecessor;
it contains a beautifully expressive Largo and a deliciously brisk and
zestful “Allegro scherzando” Rondo, marked by jocose _sforzandi_ on weak
beats and various striking rhythmic displacements. Taken as a whole,
there is far more of what we recognize as a true Beethoven quality in
this misnamed First Concerto than there is in the so-called Second.
The Third Piano Concerto (C minor, opus 37), composed in 1800 but not
played publicly till about three years later, is a great advance on its
two predecessors from every standpoint. The proximity of the more
“heroic” Beethoven is immediately evident. Indeed, it probably possessed
more of the unmistakably heroic quality than any other concerto written
before its time. The solo part is different and more striking in
originality than anything in the concertos in B-flat and C major; and a
symphonic breadth pervades the work, notably the opening movement. The
second movement—a Largo in E—begins in the piano and is then sung by
muted strings. There is a passage that, strangely enough, sounds like a
prophecy of the melody of the tenor air _Salut demeure_ in Gounod’s
opera _Faust_ and may easily have suggested it to the French composer.
Before the close of the Largo there is a cadenza “con gran espressione.”
The Rondo brings back the key of C minor and is, in a variety of ways, a
most remarkable movement. Curiously enough, the coda appears to have
been inspired by the closing page of Mozart’s C minor Concerto which,
some time earlier, had so struck Beethoven that he remarked to another
musician: “None of us will ever write anything like that!” And the
composer was not to occupy himself further with piano concertos for
several years till in 1806 he created his most deeply poetic (the
Fourth, in G major, opus 56), and again till 1809, when he wrote his
most spacious and lavish, the E-flat (“Emperor”), by which time he had
behind him several of his monumental productions.